Thursday, February 28, 2013

From March 5-7th, 2013, seven bestselling authors will be launching their new releases during a mega-multi-author event -- the Killer Thriller Book Launch. And Luke Romyn is one of these authors, and our special guest today...

The Birth of a New Christ

My life has often taken
me to strange places – not just literally, often merely figuratively. Dark,
despoiled locales haunted by miscreants and lost souls alike, where hatred is
your only brother, a blanket to keep you warm against the chill of a torturous
world.

I never intended to
write books involving God. My main aim in penning my first tome was to exorcize
some of my inner demons, but without intending to, I somehow stumbled onto a
deity I had long forgotten.

Is He real?

Ha! Good luck answering
that one. I’m not going to fall into that trap, nor am I likely to be found
preaching the word of the gospel – far from it. I find the thought of quoting
from a two-millennia-old textbook ridiculous. It has some good stories, sure. They’re
meant to teach the reader lessons about life, not be used as condemnations
against those you hate.

And then I find myself
preaching….

THE DARK PATH touched
on certain religious aspects, and it got me thinking. Images trickled through
my late-night ponderings – usually as I lay in bed trying to sleep – and I
found myself wondering what might happen were Christ actually reborn. Would he
shoot from the womb spouting philosophy? Or would he be birthed a man, a mere hominid,
one with a task of colossal importance awaiting him, and he had to decipher all
answers on his own?

I took this concept and
played with it – tearing at the edges as I do in order to dirty things up a
little.

What if this man was
raised in the wrong environment? What if those supposed to nourish and support
him instead tortured and bullied him, screaming script from the Bible at him as
they whipped his fragile mortal frame? Would he still turn out the epitome of
God, or would he morph into something a bit darker?

Sunday, February 24, 2013

There’s no doubt about it: publishing and
marketing is a crazy business full of scandals, unethical practices, and, on
some levels, desperation. I don’t like it, but I understand how things like
sock puppetry (stacking reviews in an author’s favor) happen, as writers scrap
for every bit of attention they can get.

This week, I came across another tasteless
and discouraging aspect of the book business, revealed in an insightful blog by
Soren Kaplan, the author of Leapfrogging.
His nonfiction book made it onto The Wall
Street Journal’s (WSJ) bestseller list at #3 the week it debuted, then
promptly fell off the list a week later.

For years, I’ve heard rumors about the
skewing of bestseller’s lists by those in a position to play with the numbers,
but Kaplan writes a detailed piece on exactly how he did it, and why. Kaplan’s
bio describes him as an educator, speaker, and consultant on how to create business
breakthroughs. Therefore, he has a lot of contacts in the business world, which
he used, along with his own money, to pre-order 3,000 copies of his book. According
to a company called ResultSource, who apparently cracked the bestseller code,
this is what it takes to get on the WSJ list. In fact, Kaplan talked
to people in the book business and was advised to start a bestseller campaign
because “everyone was doing it”, especially for nonfiction books. So, Kaplan hired
ResultSource to do help him create a bestseller the moment it hit the stores.

He’s the first to admit that people with
money and contacts are the ones most likely to get on the bestseller list. He
also admits that if an author and/or publisher can buy his way onto one of these lists, then how reliable is the list in the first place? Kudos to
Kaplan for having the courage to go public with his experience, although I
imagine not everyone will be happy with his decision.

When I was an elementary school teacher, I
assigned lots of book reviews. Depending on the grade level, I had certain
outlines created by a committee or an individual teacher or even the Ministry
of Education. None of these templates ever considered the Internet world. Why?
Well, in my time, it didn’t exist. These days, the Internet is ignored because
writing a review in school has far different goals than writing a review on
Amazon or Goodreads or any of the other myriad online sites. distinctly

The goals in school are two-fold. One, the
student must prove to the teacher that s/he has actually read the whole book.
Thus, a sufficiently detailed summary of the novel is a prerequisite. Two, the
teacher focuses on certain skills to be demonstrated, all the way from the
ability to predict outcomes based on clues to spelling or grammar.

A review for Amazon (I’m using the monster
site to stand in for all the others) is entirely different. Firstly, there is
only one major goal, although perhaps the reviewer may have a personal second.
The major goal is to tell other readers about your personal reactions to a
novel you have read. If there is a second objective, it’s to promote/support
the author (more on this later).

Let me wax prosaic on the first objective
and make my apologies to students who have followed their teachers’ rules into
the present. Here are some entirely new ones. From me. When you do an Amazon
review, do NOT summarize the book. All the online sites, especially Amazon,
provide excerpts, summaries, or synopses. As a reader, I can check out three
whole chapters for free. I don’t need you to summarize. If you haven’t really
read the book, you are just cheating yourself, or the author. And if you are a
cheater or have an agenda to attack the writer, I’ll be smart enough to see
very clearly through your subterfuge. So please don’t bore me with your
perception of the novel’s plotline. Leave that to the professionals.

What I am interested in is your reaction to the novel. This is your
opportunity to write two or three sentences giving your opinion. You are not bound by the old rules. You are relieved
of the summary task and you don’t have to prove any expert literary skill to
anyone. (Although you may want to demonstrate correct spelling and grammar to
be taken seriously.) Your only goal is to tell other readers what you thought
and how you felt about this particular book.

I want to know your reaction to the
characters. Did you like them (especially the main ones)? Were you repulsed,
yet fascinated, by any evildoers? On the other hand, did you find them dull or
unbelievable (e.g. their dialogue was unnatural)?

Let me know if the plot held you
spellbound, was based on fact/history/fantasy or whatever, or if it was slow,
tedious or implausible. Again, I don’t want the details. I want descriptive
reactions from you. “I couldn’t put this rollercoaster ride of a book down for
one minute.” “I fell asleep every couple of pages.” “The history was
fascinating and informative.” “The fantastical world of Astolfoland was
beautiful, sumptuous and believable.”

Speaking of Astolfoland, you might want to
focus on the setting. Was the landscape truly phenomenal? Pastoral, bucolic or
frighteningly futuristic? Was the emphasis on the surroundings what turned you
on or off the book?

Tell me what you thought of the author’s
style. Did you enjoy their sarcastic wit? Was the funny, sardonic voice of the
character hilarious? Do you like crisp, succinct writing that keeps a plot
moving? Did you love the long, luxurious descriptive narrative?

You don’t have to use fancy vocabulary and
you don’t, I repeat, don’t have the tedium and difficulty of writing a
synopsis. You only have to tell the other readers how you personally reacted to
the book.

This template translates into perhaps five
minutes of your time. You don’t have to get very technical about each of these
categories, but you can if you want to (e.g. search plot types and categorize
the book if Amazon hasn’t done it to your liking). If you have more time, go
ahead and Google. Otherwise, craft three short sentences about your personal
opinion. Write about how you felt about the book and what you thought of the
style (pick a focus if you want: voice, viewpoint, technique), setting, plot
(thriller, narrative, type of conflict, romance) and/or characters (dialogue,
description, actions). Cover all these categories or the one that affected you
most and caused you to like/dislike the novel.

As a writer, I would be thrilled if
everyone used this technique. Why? Because readers would then submit more
reviews. Unencumbered by the difficult task of creating a synopsis or
demonstrating a specific expertise, the reviewer knows exactly what to say.
After all, their reaction to the novel is personal, unique, and honest, and
therefore easy to write.

One last thing: about the honesty. Of
course it’s referable to be truthful. But that doesn’t have to translate into
mean, vicious and soul-destroying. There is a gentle way to say “that jacket
makes you look fat”. A professional, responsible way to state that your
reaction to the book was negative. I can say, “I disagree fundamentally with
the viewpoint” or I can say, “The author takes a stupidly ridiculous stance”.
One accepts responsibility for the opinion; the other blames and demeans.
Another way to accept responsibility and be professional is to use your own
name when you review a book. Don’t hide behind a moniker. If you are a
friend/relative of the author, say so. As a reader, I will take your
relationship into consideration. If you are one of my students trying to seek
revenge for a low mark on a book report, let me know, and I’ll be sure to put
an A on your review.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

If you’re like
me, you’ve lost track of the number
of articles and books telling writers how to promote their work. With over a
million print and e-books being published worldwide every year, we read the
advice diligently, hoping for a way just to be noticed. One of the common promo tips is to involve ourselves with
social media and develop a brand. Experts say it’s a must and I agreed, until a
recent blog from The Militant Writer made me stop and think.

The blog states
that promoting your book on Facebook and Twitter is a total waste of time,
primarily because people don’t visit these sites to buy books. They go there to
socialize or to promote their own books. The Militant Writer states that
writers don’t buy other writers books, which hasn’t been my experience. While I
like Twitter a lot and do believe it’s helped sell books, especially when offering
a giveaway or reduced price, I do see The Militant Writer’s point. Twitter
often feels like one giant ad board to scroll down until your eyes cross and
you can’t take anymore. I often look for tweets that have no links, just to see
if someone has something non-promotional to say. I try to post something every
day that has no link to give myself and others a break.

I’ve been far
choosier about whom I accept as friends on Facebook. For me, this site is more
about checking in to see how my friends are doing than it is about promotion.
Although, like all dutiful authors, I have a business page with nearly 500
“Likes”, mostly from folks who also have books to sell. My business page gives
me a place to announce book news or post my blogs, but I haven’t seen this translate
into sales.

You won’t be
surprised to learn that The Militant Writer isn’t a fan of LinkedIn and other
social media sites. I’m also not a fan of hurrying to join the next big thing,
whether it’s Google+ or Pinterest. In fact, I’m kind of tired of rushing to
join the crowd. The contrarian in me would much rather turn around and walk the
other way.

Promotion, like
many things, has phases and fads. Sooner or later, the appeal of Twitter and
Facebook will fade. But then what? Maybe it’s time to rethink how I promote myself;
if there are better ways to be noticed than by relying on two enormous sites. Or
is it simply a matter of quality over quantity, and spending more time writing
than electronic socializing/promotion?

I won’t give up on
social media completely. After all, I do have friends and followers who pay
attention to what I’m doing, or what I have to say. The truth is that word of
mouth still sells books, and sometimes those first words come from social
media, such as a comment or an online review. So I don’t completely agree with
The Militant Writer. See if you do

Sunday, February 10, 2013

In recent weeks, there has been a
fair bit of local (Vancouver) news
coverage on the price differences between Canadian and American goods. Many
British Columbians head south of the border to
buy significantly cheaper gas and dairy products, for example. Readers who’ve
purchased books in both countries are well aware that books cost
significantly more in Canada.

A recent article from
ca.finance.yahoo.com states that a Senate report released this week has
analyzed these price differences and come up with recommendations about closing
the gap, which is good news for Canadians.

In the late 1990s the Canadian
government amended a law which helped U.S.
publishers adjust to the currency imbalance at that time and to cover the
costs of shipping and distributing books in Canada.
Canadian exclusive distributors were allowed to add a 10% markup on the sales
price from the country of origin and adjust for current exchanges. Apparently,
the rules were supposed to act as a price ceiling, however, it doesn’t appear
to have worked out that way.

Times have changed. The Canadian
dollar is now at par, however, the markup still exists under the Border
Importation Regulations, which is linked to the Copyright Act. The bottom line
appears to be that Canada
is still a relatively small market and the cost of doing business here is still
high for American publishers. Whether the Senate recommendations will
eventually mean cheaper prices at Canadian bookstores remains to be seen.

Monday, February 04, 2013

Rubicon Ranch is a collaborative and innovative crime serial set in the desert community of Rubicon Ranch and is being written online by the authors of Second Wind Publishing. Seven authors, including me, are involved in the current story — Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces.

Residents of
Rubicon Ranch are finding body parts scattered all over the desert. Who was the
victim and why did someone want him so very dead? Everyone in this upscale
housing development is hiding something. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone’s
life will be different after they have encountered the Rubicon. Rubicon Ranch,
that is.

Although
some of the characters were introduced in Rubicon
Ranch: Riley’s Story, a previous collaboration, Rubicon Ranch:
Necropieces is a stand-alone novel. A new chapter is posted every Monday.

We hope you
will enjoy seeing the story develop as we write it. Whodunit? No one knows, not
even the writers, and we won’t know until the very end!

Chapter
25: Melanie Gray
by Pat Bertram

Melanie
paced her rented house, wandering through the great room to the bedroom, then
up the stairs to her loft office to stare out the window. The clouds that had
skirted Rubicon Ranch all day yesterday had settled over the town in the early
morning hours. The rainstorm had now weakened to a soft drizzle, but
floodwaters were swirling out of the desert and down the middle of the street
like dirty bath water in search of a drain.

Melanie half
expected to see body parts floating by, but it had been forty-eight hours since
she had found the ravens breakfasting on the disembodied foot, so perhaps by
now all the necropieces had been discovered. Shivering, she turned from the
window, trudged down the steps to the great room and then into the bedroom.
She’d spent most of the fifteen weeks since Alexander’s death roaming the
desert, and she found it almost impossible to relax during this enforced
incarceration. If she were any kind of photographer instead of an amateur
shutterbug, she’d be out in the desert despite the rain, chronicling the way
the runoff was recreating the desert floor, but her tiny camera wouldn’t stand
up to the moisture, and then where would she be?

She plodded
back through the great room and up the stairs again. Her cell phone rang, and
for just a second, her spirits rose. Alexander! He was finally calling
to tell her he was coming back. Just as abruptly, the realization that he was
dead hit her like a physical blow, and tears spilled down her cheeks. Why
couldn’t she remember that he would never come home? His body had been cremated
and the ashes stored in a square brass urn sitting atop the dresser until she
could take them high up into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and scatter them.

By the time
she reached her bedroom where she’d left her cell phone on the nightstand, the
phone had stopped ringing. The tiny screen showed the number for her agent, and
when the phone rang again, she considered not answering. What could the woman
say that hadn’t been said a dozen times before? Melanie already knew her
deadline had passed. She already knew she owed the publisher either the book or
the return of the advance. She already knew . . . Oh, crap. It would be better
to talk to Dottie and get it over with.

“Yes?” she
said, hating the hesitancy she heard in her voice.

“Dahling!”
Dottie chirped. “I’ve been calling and calling. Have I got good news for you!
I’ve been talking to Jack, and he says you can have all the time you need to
finish the desert book. He’ll even hire a photographer for you. And
he’ll send you five hundred thousand dollars, though I’m sure I can get him up
to a million.”

“What does
he want from me? A kidney?” Jack Nolan, her publisher, had a reputation for
wringing every last bit of creative effort from his authors while paying the
least possible advance. He got away with it because, despite his miserly ways,
he was scrupulously honest, remitting every penny of the royalties his authors
earned.

Dottie
chuckled. “So cynical, dahling. It’s perfect, really. You’re there. You know
the people and the place. And from what I understand, you live next door to the
Sinclairs.”

“No,”
Melanie said, without a hint of uncertainty in her tone.

“You don’t
live next door to them? My sources—”

“I mean, no.
I will not write whatever book Jack wants me to write. I’m going to finish the
desert book and then . . .”

“And then
what? Knowing Alexander, he probably left you not only broke but also in debt.
Someone is going to write the book about Morris Sinclair. It might as well be
you.”

“Wait a
minute,” Melanie said. “How do you know what’s going on here?”

Dottie
laughed. “The whole world knows. It’s everywhere. On television, Facebook,
Twitter. It’s such a delicious story. The author of the infamous ‘Necropieces’
series has himself become a series of necropieces. His fans don’t believe he’s
permanently dead. They are holding vigils, waiting for him to come back to
life. And his head was found in the house where that little girl died. Riley?
Is that her name? The girl that was kidnapped as an infant and then killed by
her biological father? How can you not want to write the story of Rubicon
Ranch? It’s going to be huge. Humongous.”

“Not
interested.”

“Wait!
There’s more!” Dottie said. “You gotta love this stuff. One of the suspects in
Morris’s murder is Tara Windsor.”

“Who?”
Melanie asked.

“You had to
be living out in the boonies somewhere not to have heard of Tara. Oh,
right—you’ve been out of the country for the past umpteen years. Tara is an
actress. She was in that movie with that actor, you know, the one with the
gorgeous abs? No, I guess you don’t know. Anyway, it turns out the suspect
isn’t Tara at all. Tara is in Cabo with her pool boy. Don’t you just love it?”

Melanie sank
down onto the bed, suddenly weary. “No.”

“And then
there’s you,” Dottie said slyly.

Melanie sat
up straight. “Me? What about me?”

“The cops
say you’re a suspect. You knew that, right? Jack says if you killed Morris and
tell all the gory details, he’ll up your advance to two million.”

A
suspect. Melanie had presumed the Sheriff’s insinuation that he considered
her a suspect was his way of manipulating her and keeping her off balance, but
if he or someone in the Sheriff’s department had given out her name, then she
really had a problem. She heard the echo of herself screaming at Morris, “You
leave me alone, Sinclair, or I’ll be shooting your dead body parts.” Could
she have been more foolish?

“Do you know
a good lawyer?” She gave a small laugh, wanting Dottie to think the question a
joke, but fear clutched at her belly with clammy fingers. Maybe she’d have to
write Morris’s story in order to pay for a defense attorney.

“You might
not be a celebrity on a par with Morris or Tara,” Dottie said, “but you and
Alexander have quite a following. Since there’s been mention of your
involvement in Alexander’s death—”

“Who told
you I was involved in Alexander’s death?” Melanie demanded.

“Just a
guess.” Dottie voice sounded smug, as if she’d caught Melanie out in a secret.
But there was no secret when it came to Alexander’s death. Just shoddy police
work. “So many important deaths in such a small place make for a good story,”
Dottie added.

“All the
deaths are unrelated,” Melanie pointed out.

“Perhaps,
but it’s more likely they are connected somehow. After all, Morris had autopsy
photos of that little girl, and Alexander took some photos of necropieces for
Morris.”

“You knew
about that?”

“Alexander
accidentally included a couple of the pictures when he sent Jack a batch of
desert photos.”

Melanie
sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Alexander’s death had something to do with
Morris and the evil that this place seems to bring out in people.”

“So can I
tell Jack you’ll write the book if he gives you an advance of a million
dollars?”

“No. But you
can tell him I’ll consider it.”

“Good girl.
I’ll see what I can do about finding you a lawyer.”

Melanie set
the phone on the nightstand, and put her head in her hands. Oh, Alexander.
Look what you’ve done to me. She took a few deep breaths, determined not to
cry, but when the tears spilled over anyway, she jumped to her feet, ran up the
stairs, and plopped in front of the computer. Immersing herself in research
always helped take her mind off herself, and she needed to know more about
Morris before she could give Dottie her decision.

Typing
“Morris Sinclair” into her search engine resulted in over two hundred million
hits. Morris’s website. Book and movie sites. Thousands of fan sites and cult
groups. Blogs. Articles. She narrowed her search to “Morris Sinclair biography”
and managed to piece together the story of a highly narcissistic and
anti-social man in his late sixties who had started out as a normal kid, turned
into a troubled and rebellious teenager, and grew into a sadistic beast during
his tour of duty in Vietnam.

After
Vietnam, Morris married a woman he’d only known for a few weeks. He worked as a
roughneck on an oilrig and wrote tales of terror on the side. When the stories
were published, they found an immediate readership. He quit work to write
fulltime.

Morris and
his wife had three children, two boys and a girl. His wife committed suicide
while the children were very young. Or perhaps Morris had killed her? That made
more sense to Melanie—what mother would kill herself and leave her children to
be raised by the devil incarnate?

Although the
thought of a million dollars and the freedom it could buy tempted her, Melanie
did not want to spend the next few months of her life immersed in the evil that
was Morris. She was all set to call her agent and turn down the deal, when the
doorbell rang.

She opened
the door to find Lieutenant Frio and Deputy Midget standing on her doorstep,
their faces set as if in stone.

“Ms. Gray,”
Lieutenant Frio said, “we’d like for you to come with us. Sheriff Bryan wants
to talk to you.”

Melanie held
out her hands, wrists together, but Deputy Midget shook his head. “Sheriff
Bryan says not to cuff you unless you give us trouble.”

“No.”
Melanie darted into the bedroom, grabbed a trench coat from the closet and
tucked her phone in the pocket.

Sandwiched
between the two law officers, Melanie marched out to the tan Navigator parked
at the curb in front of her house. Deputy Midget opened the back door of the
vehicle, put a hand on her head to guide her through the opening as if she were
a common criminal, then lowered himself into the front passenger seat. The
right side of the Navigator sank, and the tires seemed to scream out for
relief.

Lieutenant
Frio peeled away from the curb. The tires sent up huge plumes of floodwaters
that broke over the vehicle, and made it seem as if they were driving through a
car wash.

Melanie
stared out the window, though she couldn’t see anything but the backwash of
water. If she strained her ears, she felt sure she could hear Alexander’s
ghostly laughter. During all their years of living in countries with no civil
liberties, they had never had a single problem with the authorities, and yet
now, not even four months after his death, she found herself at odds with the
law.

Maybe this
arrest was just another of the sheriff’s games? She had never known what he
wanted from her, though when they met after she’d found Riley’s body, he had
focused his attention on her, and made her feel . . . seen. No one but
Alexander had ever looked at her that closely, and even Alexander had stopped
paying attention to her years before. Or maybe what had seemed like
manipulation—the sheriff concentrating his attention on her and then ignoring
her—had all been in her head, a widow’s cry to be noticed.

Once they
hit the dry road of the highway, the thirty miles to Rojo Duro seemed to slip
past in an instant. Deputy Midget ushered Melanie to a small room with two
chairs and a metal table bolted to the floor, and left her alone.

A mirror on
one wall had to be a one-way window, but Melanie put a finger against the glass
to be sure. Finger touching finger without any space told her the truth—anyone
could be watching her from the other side, and she would never know. She
resisted the urge to stick out her tongue in a childish show of temper.
Instead, she sat tall in a chair, hands folded on the table, and tried not to
think of where she was. Tried not to think of her pathetic life. Tried not to
think of her uncertain future.

Nine minutes
later, Sheriff Bryan entered the room and locked the door behind him. He
perched one hip on the table, and stared at her, no friendliness in his eyes.

After a long
moment, he heaved a sigh and said, “Why did you do it, Melanie?”

Sunday, February 03, 2013

A recent article in nowtoronto.com
reported that the Globe and Mail is
slashing its books section. In fact, the two literary editors are leaving their
posts and apparently no one will be taking their place. One of
the editors said that a huge drop in ads is partly to blame,
while his colleague maintains that the paper now seems to prefer celebrity
gossip to literary criticism. If this is true,
then that is a sad state of affairs. Where do readers who appreciate reviews
and great books go to read about the latest publications? Please don’t tell me
there aren’t any readers like that around because I personally know several.

What’s happening at the Globe and Mail isn’t unique, as many
major newspapers have slashed their books section, probably for similar
reasons. Also, as I’ve said before, more readers prefer reading reviews online,
which is fine. The problem is that our choices are being cut. The mystery
writing community has already seen reviewers’ columns slashed over recent years.
Now, I’m wondering if the Globe’s best known crime fiction reviewer, Margaret Cannon, will
also lose her longstanding, popular column.

Most disturbing is the sense that
newspapers are slowly transforming into celebrity gossip rags to stay alive. Losing
the books section wouldn’t trouble me so much if the
papers were exchanging literary criticism for serious news. After all, there are plenty of important
events going on in the world that deserve more attention. If celebrity
stories are grabbing even more space than they already have, then the media’s
in deeper trouble than I thought. To read the nowtoronto.com article, go to http://www.nowtoronto.com/books/story.cfm?content=190944